Editor's note: At the time this story was written, Larry Nassar faced three sexual assault charges in state court. Days later, he was indicted on three federal child pornography charges. In December 2017, he was sentenced to 60 years in prison on the federal charges. In January 2018, he was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison on sexual assault charges at the end of a seven-day sentencing hearing during which 156 women and girls said he sexually abused them.

EAST LANSING – She told Michigan State University she was sexually assaulted by Dr. Larry Nassar during a visit to his campus office in 2014 for treatment of hip pain.

MSU told her she wasn’t.

She said Nassar cupped her buttocks, massaged her breast and vaginal area. She said he became sexually aroused.

MSU's Title IX office, which investigates gender discrimination claims including allegations of sexual assault and harassment, determined she didn’t understand the “nuanced difference” between sexual assault and an appropriate medical procedure.

The woman, at the time a recent MSU graduate, said she worried the university wouldn’t take her complaint seriously.

In July 2014, three months after starting an investigation, MSU's Title IX office dismissed her claim but thanked her for bringing it to their attention. MSU police investigated as well, but Ingham County prosecutors declined to issue charges.

“They just didn’t listen,” said the woman, who the State Journal isn’t identifying because she is an alleged victim of sexual assault. “All of these people. All of these people didn’t listen.”

“I think the university made the right decision with the information we had at the time,” he said.

As part of its internal investigation, the university sought the opinions of four medical experts. All had close ties to MSU and Nassar, who now faces three sexual assault charges in a separate case and similar allegations from 50 other women. Nassar, through his attorneys, has denied any wrongdoing. The former MSU team physician, who was fired in September, served as USA Gymnastics’ team physician during four Olympic Games and is one of the figures in a nationwide scandal involving how the organization handles allegations of sexual assault.

Nassar was arraigned Friday in federal court on two child pornography charges. More information is expected to be released by U.S. Attorney Patrick Miles on Monday.

The internal systems set up by MSU and other universities to address allegations of sexual violence and sexual harassment operate separately from the criminal justice system. The process and results are cloaked in secrecy, aided by federal privacy laws, and have fueled federal Department of Education investigations and lawsuits across the country.

Court records, university documents and interviews with victims show in stark detail how MSU's failure to promptly, equitably and sufficiently respond to sexual harassment and sexual assault complaints put women in the campus community at risk.

Consider this:

Denise Maybank, the university’s vice president for student affairs and services, overturned the expulsion of a graduate student with a criminal history who was accused twice by women at MSU of sexual misconduct and harassment, records show.

In another case, a male student who had previously been placed on university probation for groping a woman in 2011 was accused of rape in 2014. He was expelled, appealed to a hearing board without success and then to Maybank, who overturned the expulsion after MSU hired a law firm to reinvestigate the case, according to a federal lawsuit filed against the university.

MSU's Title IX office, independent of any police investigation, received 334 complaints of sexual misconduct or relationship violence in the four-year stretch that started in the fall of 2011. TheTitle IX office investigated 71 and took action in 30.

The hearing board that considers appeals didn’t change a single sanction imposed by a discipline board in four years.

She declined to say why, and in an interview Dec. 9 said she couldn't remember how many sanctions she increased or decreased. A university spokesman said MSU won't disclose details of the changes.

The U.S. Department of Education last year concluded an investigation into MSU’s handling of sexual assault and relationship violence allegations, which was prompted by complaints against the university.

Investigators reviewed 150 cases and found “significant concerns” in 30. The report determined MSU failed to respond to complaints in a timely manner and may have contributed to a “sexually hostile environment” on campus.

Its key findings:

Olds Hall on the campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing. Olds Hall houses the university’s Office of Institutional Equity, which investigates sexual assault and sexual harassment allegations.(Photo: Dave Wasinger/Lansing State Journal)

In what federal investigators wrote was “the most troubling example…” the director of MSU’s Counseling Center did not launch a formal investigation after a sexual assault counselor was accused in 2009 of harassing a student who sought help. The counselor stayed on the job for four more years until being accused in 2013 of harassing another student who sought sexual assault counseling.

That case was one of a "a few instances" where university officials ignored allegations of sexual assault and relationship violence, leading to additional allegations. Another example included a university employee being cleared of sexual harassment claims because MSU determined the harassment was only verbal and lasted for only a few months.

Many of MSU's case files lacked key documentation, including whether any assistance was offered to those who made allegations and whether MSU took any steps after an investigation to prevent a recurrence of the harassment.

The majority of the files "gave no indication that the complainants were given any opportunity to appeal the outcome..."

"A significant number of files" lacked investigative reports, which means federal investigators couldn't determine whether an investigation was completed or if MSU acted on the findings.

MSU also has been sued by at least three former students who were disciplined for violating its sexual misconduct policy. All allege the university violated their due process rights.

President Lou Anna Simon declined comment.

MSU has revised dozens of policies and more than doubled the number of its Title IX investigators since the Department of Education investigation.

While Maybank agreed to an interview, she declined to discuss specific cases. She said she doesn't dispute that some women were put at risk, but argues there is no widespread danger to women on campus.

"It wasn't about this place being unsafe," she said about the Department of Education investigation. "It was about circumstances associated with particular situations. And I think that's different. But even with that we made a commitment to looking at who we were then and making sure we're better now."

Overturned expulsion

All that separated Elizabeth Pellerito from her ex-boyfriend was a locked bathroom door.

According to police records, he had sent her more than 100 texts on Feb. 9, 2013, even after she told him to stop, some coming so frequently she couldn’t keep up. He was adamant. Where was she? What was she doing? Could he see her?

By early evening he was at the door of her Lansing apartment, having entered the building with a set of keys he had refused to return.

She had changed the lock on her apartment door, fearing he might return. He kicked it in.

Now, Ben Dettmar was at the other side of the bathroom door threatening to kill himself if she didn’t talk to him. She told him police were on their way. Dettmar fled the apartment moments before police arrived, but not before assaulting Elizabeth’s boyfriend, who also was in the apartment, police records show.

Dettmar told the university he didn't break into the apartment and that the incident took place outside the apartment.

A photo of Elizabeth Pellerito's apartment door police took in February 2013 while investigating a report of her ex-boyfriend breaking into the apartment.(Photo: Courtesy photo)

Elizabeth and Dettmar were graduate students at MSU.

The incident prompted Ingham County prosecutors to charge Dettmar with felony home invasion. Months later, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of illegal entry. His sentence was a $930 fine or 60 days in jail. He paid the fine.

Almost three years later, after Elizabeth decided to report the incident to the university, and after an investigation that lasted 272 days, MSU expelled Dettmar.

Maybank later reversed that decision on appeal. Instead, Dettmar, 38, will be allowed to return to campus Dec. 18, 2017, after a two-year suspension.

“I note that you had no disciplinary record prior to this incident,” Maybank wrote in a letter sent to Dettmar in December 2015 after his second appeal of the expulsion. “While your conduct was inexcusable, the recommended sanction of dismissal is not commensurate to your conduct violation.”

But Dettmar did have a disciplinary record.

And Maybank knew about it when she overturned his expulsion, records show. That reversal came three and a half months after the federal investigation ended and MSU pledged to improve.

Attempts to reach Dettmar through three different email accounts, Facebook and by phone were unsuccessful. Messages left seeking comment were not returned.

'Really tough thing'

In order to bring the federal Department of Education investigation to a close, MSU agreed to do a better job investigating sexual assault and harassment claims. Simon told the State Journal on Sept. 1, 2015 — the day the federal investigation ended — that “we’re on board with the national conversation that one sexual assault is too many.”

Yet the internal process still plays out in secret.

MSU, and almost all other public universities, cite the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, often referred to as FERPA, as the basis for needing to keep the investigations, reports, proceedings, findings and sanctions out of public view. MSU's website says FERPA, among other rights, gives students some control over the disclosure of personally identifiable information from their education records.

Cody said revealing details of Maybank's changes to sanctions in the eight cases could violate FERPA.

MSU student Emily Kollaritsch, standing left, speaks to MSU Vice President for Student Affairs and Services Denise Maybank, right, during a sit in at the president's office on campus in East Lansing on Dec. 10, 2014. Kollaritsch, then a senior, spoke to the group and said she was sexually abused while a freshman at MSU and reported it to the university. Kollaritsch and three other women have sued MSU in federal court over its handling of their sexual assault allegations.(Photo: Rod Sanford/Lansing State Journa)

Nancy Cantalupo, a Barry University law professor who studies and has written about campus sexual assault investigations, said protecting the identity of students is important so they feel comfortable coming forward.

“FERPA is a difficulty,” Cantalupo said. “But it’s not necessarily a difficulty because of what it says, but because of the way that it gets interpreted (by universities).”

Which means universities have differing practices in what they release. Although FERPA makes it difficult to see how proceedings are carried out, it does not prevent people who have made allegations of harassment or assault from sharing their experiences.

Title IX is the federal law that prohibits gender discrimination in education. It was passed in 1972.

The federal government in 2011 said, as part of Title IX, it expected schools and universities to treat sexual assault and harassment as forms of gender discrimination and to investigate and adjudicate those claims. It told them to use a lower burden of proof than the criminal justice system in determining whether someone was sexually harassed or assaulted, yet many found their internal disciplinary systems weren’t even remotely prepared for the job.

As of Nov. 30, the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights is investigating sexual violence cases at 217 colleges or universities.

A State Journal review found at least 10 active federal lawsuits against universities, including MSU, for Title IX violations related to sexual assault claims.

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In June 2011, the federal government received its first complaint that MSU wasn’t adequately responding to claims. There would be another complaint against the university in 2014.

Tamara Lave, a University of Miami law school professor who has written extensively about sexual assault investigations on campuses, said it can be challenging for universities to adjudicate sexual assault claims.

“It’s a really, really tough thing,” she said. “There’s a lot of alcohol and there’s a lot of things that start consensual and allegedly shift to somewhere in between.”

Fear of not being believed has been a major factor dissuading victims from reporting rape, sexual assault or dating violence for the past 20 years, said Dr. Angela Amar, associate dean of Emory College’s nursing school. She specializes in forensic nursing and those types of cases.

“Even if history proves you’re right,” Amar said, “at the time it can be a lonely place for you to be.”

Cantalupo said the federal government’s focus on violence against women on campuses has made a difference.

In its agreement with the Department of Education, MSU said it would create a new office to investigate sexual assault and harassment claims as they relate to Title IX and staff it with new and better trained investigators. The university’s police department also created a specialized unit to handle sexual assault investigations.

“There’s no question in my mind that the (Title IX) movement has improved things at every institution,” Cantalupo said. “How much is the question. And how much is really the question that has to be asked on an institution by institution basis.”

'They clearly don't care'

In October 2014, Meg confided in a professor that she was being stalked.

She said this man threatened her and her roommate, had physically abused her and would “bombard” her with text messages.

Meg didn’t mention Dettmar’s name.

She didn’t have to.

Less than two years earlier the professor had a similar conversation with his officemate — Elizabeth Pellerito.

After the professor shared Elizabeth’s name and her story with Meg, Meg contacted the police. Then she sent Elizabeth a Facebook message.

Elizabeth warned Meg about Dettmar and gave her advice on how to protect herself, so Meg obtained a personal protection order. The women shared their experiences, and Elizabeth told Meg in a Facebook message they sounded “sickeningly familiar.” (Below is an excerpt from a Lansing Police Department incident report related to Elizabeth.)

Meg told police and a university investigator from its Title IX office about how she and Dettmar bumped into each other the summer after she was a student in his class and struck up a conversation, according to police and Title IX office reports. They later started an on-and-off relationship that lasted nearly a year.

She told investigators Dettmar was physically abusive and coerced her into having sex on at least two occasions, reports show, adding that he was verbally abusive and manipulative, and now that their relationship was over he was persistent in demanding they have sex once more.

Dettmar denied Meg's allegations, reports show. He said Meg hit him, the sex was always consensual and she pushed him to be more sexually adventurous. Prosecutors declined to bring charges.

Elizabeth spoke to investigators as a witness in Meg’s case, detailing her relationship with Dettmar and the incident at her apartment. The university, to Elizabeth’s surprise, then opened a second investigation — into Dettmar’s behavior as it related to her.

Elizabeth waited 272 days for MSU to complete its investigation into her incident.

Meg waited 219 days.

Dettmar remained enrolled in graduate courses throughout the investigation in 2014 and 2015. He also taught at Adrian College as an adjunct professor. He’s currently an adjunct professor at Lawrence Technological University in Southfield.

“I constantly felt like I was under the microscope and that they didn’t believe me,” Meg said. “That’s what I felt like the entire time. And that isn’t what you should feel like as a victim. I never got the feeling that MSU believed me.”

The school's investigations found that Dettmar made “sexual demands” Meg repeatedly refused and that he broke into Elizabeth’s apartment. They ruled he violated university policy by creating a "hostile environment" in each case, according to university records.

The university placed him on probation for his interactions with Meg; he was expelled for the incident with Elizabeth. Dettmar appealed each decision — twice. The hearing board and Maybank each denied his appeal in Meg’s case. In Elizabeth’s case, however, Maybank overturned Dettmar’s expulsion after the hearing board had denied the appeal.

Maybank wouldn’t discuss Meg or Elizabeth's cases. However, she said when an appeal reaches her desk she looks at the accused student's disciplinary history, although it may not factor into her decision.

"If it's something that's been completed ... and it's not relevant to what's being considered at the time," she said, "no, it wouldn't be considered."

“We did everything in our power to try to show him you can’t treat women in this way, you can’t abuse people in this way,” Elizabeth said.

“And it failed. … Everything leading up to it was pointless.”

'No case will ever be handled perfectly'

On the same night in February 2013 when Elizabeth Pellerito had the run-in with her ex-boyfriend, Shayna Gross was out with a group of MSU students and attended a party. A male student started mixing her drinks, she later told police, and her memories of the night got “fuzzier” later on.

Gross and the male student had sex several times that night. He said it was consensual. She said she was too drunk to consent.

Her memories of the night are only quick flashes of moments — like lying naked on the floor of a shower or being in his bunk bed crying and, she told police, telling him no as they had sex.

Gross waited a year before reporting to police or the university what had happened.

Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III’s office declined to issue charges. A university investigation by the Title IX office determined the sex wasn’t consensual.

It was the second time the university had ruled this man violated university policy. The first was in 2011 when MSU concluded he groped Emily Kolloaritsch twice; he was placed on probation.

MSU expelled him for the second offense.

His appeal to Maybank, according to court records, prompted the hiring of Grand Rapids-based law firm Warner Norcrosse and Judd in March 2015 to reinvestigate the case. After the law firm said it couldn’t determine whether he had raped Shayna, Maybank overturned his expulsion. The man has since graduated.

Maybank wouldn't discuss Shayna's case, but said she hasn't hired a law firm to reinvestigate a sexual assault allegation. The university's Office of General Counsel has, she said. The office is available to answer questions for Maybank when she considers appeals, she said, but she wouldn't say what questions or issues prompted the law firm to be hired.

Cantalupo, the Barry University law school professor, said hiring a law firm to reinvestigate a case gives the appearance MSU was “fishing around for the outcome” it wanted. It’s also “begging” for a lawsuit, she said.

“You should not be re-resolving a case, reinvestigating a case that you’ve already put through your internal process,” Cantalupo said. “That is just torture for everyone involved.”

The law firm billed MSU for 213 hours over two and a half months, for which the university paid $64,555.

Gross, Kolloaritsch and two other women filed a federal lawsuit against the university and two fraternities last year alleging MSU failed to adequately respond to their claims and protect them from retaliation.

In its motion to dismiss the lawsuit, MSU’s attorneys maintain that even if the university handled the investigations poorly, that alone doesn’t mean MSU is at fault because it wasn’t deliberately indifferent.

“Claims of student-on-student sexual assault are difficult cases for the criminal justice system, what’s more institutions of higher learning,” MSU’s attorneys wrote. “No case will ever be handled perfectly in the minds of all participants, and in every case one side will be dissatisfied with the outcome.”

A judge has dismissed the fraternities from the lawsuit. MSU’s request for dismissal is pending.

Their accounts in the Indy Star and subsequent reporting by the State Journal prompted the MSU graduate to share her story.

When MSU dismissed her complaint in 2014 she remembered telling herself, “That’s wrong. They’re going to realize they’re making a mistake when someone else reports.”

Others have. About 50 others, police said, some making allegations dating back decades.

Nassar last month was charged with three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct with a person under 13 and faces up to life in prison if convicted.

Police and prosecutors say more charges are expected.

CLOSE

Rachael Denhollander is one of two former gymnasts who have contacted IndyStar about alleged sexual abuse by longtime USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar. She filed an August criminal complaint in Michigan.
(Robert Scheer/IndyStar)

MSU does not dispute the majority of the facts of this woman's experience with Nassar on March 24, 2014.

Nassar was a well-respected doctor who had treated her before. He had been working for USA Gymnastics for nearly three decades. He was a faculty member of MSU’s College of Osteopathic Medicine and an MSU team physician.

Early in the examination, Nassar cupped the woman’s buttocks. Then about an hour in, Nassar sent the only other person present, a female resident, out of the examination room, the university’s Title IX investigator, Kristine Moore, wrote in her report.

At this point, the woman started to feel uncomfortable and soon Nassar was massaging her breast in an intimate way, she later told Moore.

Lansing State Journal File photo
Dr. Larry Nassar, D.O., works with a patient in this 2008 photo.
Dr. Larry Nassar, D.O., works with a patient in this 2008 photo.(Photo: Becky Shink, Becky Shink/Lansing State Journa)

With the woman lying on her stomach, Nassar started to massage her hip on top of her clothes, she told Moore. Then, after she told him it was helping a little, he moved his hands under her sweatpants and started to massage her buttocks. He wasn’t wearing gloves.

Soon he “began to massage her with three fingers in a circular motion in her vaginal area,” Moore wrote. He was “extremely close” to inserting a finger into her vagina.

“She states she was shocked,” Moore wrote in her investigative report. “… She states she could not process in her mind what was happening.”

After about a minute, the woman said she finally got the courage to tell Nassar he was hurting her. But he didn’t stop, she told Moore. Instead Nassar told her he was “almost done.”

The woman says the final report is missing key facts, facts she gave MSU more than once: Nassar was sexually aroused; and the appointment didn’t end until she physically removed his hands from her.

“They didn’t want the real information,” she said. “They didn’t want to have to get rid of Dr. Nassar because he’s such a big deal.”

Nassar told Moore he didn't remember the appointment, but that what was described in Moore's report sounds like standard operating procedure, according to her report. It's not clear whether Moore ever raised the issue with Nassar of whether he was sexually aroused or the woman removed his hands from her.

Moore focused on determining whether what Nassar did was sexual assault or an appropriate medical procedure.

Moore interviewed four medical experts. All had close ties to Nassar and the university. One even told Moore she was “very good friends” with Nassar, according to the university report.

“That’s just the dumbest thing,” said Colby Bruno, senior legal counsel for the Victim Rights Law Center with offices in Boston and Portland, Ore., who added this is a perfect example of a conflict of interest clouding an investigation. “You’re basically stacking it. You’re stacking it in favor of the doctor.”

All four experts agreed Nassar did nothing wrong.

A judge granted a request to add USA Gymnastics to a civil lawsuit filed against former Michigan State University doctor Larry Nassar.(Photo: Dave Wasinger/Lansing State Journal)

Nassar's attorneys declined to comment for this story. In September, after new allegations began to surface, they issued a statement saying their client performed medical procedures that included vaginal penetration.

"These techniques are medically accepted and appropriate treatments, according to doctors who practice osteopathic manual medicine," his attorneys said at the time. "Any allegations that Dr. Nassar was performing these procedures for any purpose other than proper medical treatment are patently false and untrue.”

Moore wrote in her report that the woman received an appropriate medical procedure and likely misinterpreted it as sexual assault because she wasn’t familiar with osteopathic medicine and wouldn’t know the “nuanced difference.”

Several university leaders were aware of the investigation and its result — or should have been. The investigative report "would have been shared with academic leadership in the college, academic Human Resources and our General Counsel’s office," Cody said in an email.

In a letter to the woman telling her Nassar had been cleared, Moore thanked her for bringing her allegations to the university’s attention. It allowed MSU to “review the practices” and “make recommendations for changes” in the Sports Medicine Clinic.

“We appreciate the time and attention you devoted to this matter in order to allow us to do that,” Moore wrote.

There were things Moore found “somewhat inappropriate” or “troubling” about Nassar’s behavior: A comment about the female patient’s boyfriend needing to give her better massages, sending the female resident out of the room and not telling the woman what he was going to do before he did it.

However, none of that amounted to a “hostile environment,” in Moore’s analysis, because the procedures were medically appropriate. The woman, defeated, didn’t appeal Moore’s findings.

And that was almost the end of it.

Until the women in California and Kentucky told their stories this summer.

Gannett-cdn

A reopened case

MSU has made wholesale changes since the end of the federal investigation, including more than 30 revised policies, procedures and documents, some of which Cody said the university was already working on before the close of the investigation.

The university was required to review all other sexual assault and harassment complaints and reports from 2010 to 2015 and assess if they were handled properly.

Cody said the university completed the review of 224 cases and "communicated with all relevant individuals" by the end of 2015. The university offered remedies — paying for counseling or tuition reimbursement, for example — to complainants in cases where the university identified problems, he said.

Cody couldn’t say in how many cases remedies were offered, but said no cases had been officially reopened.

However, State Journal questions about cases included in that review led MSU to discover this week that an unknown number of cases, including the 2014 Nassar investigation, had not been reviewed, Cody said. He attributed the issue to the 2015 transition to the new Title IX office. The university notified the Department of Education about the issue on Tuesday, Cody said, and is working on correcting it.

The university has seven Title IX investigators, up from three when the Department of Education investigation closed. It hired former Ingham County assistant prosecutor Debra Rousseau Martinez, who handled the county’s most serious sexual assault cases, as an investigator. MSU hired Ande Durojaiye to lead the office that investigates all discrimination allegations, including sexual assaults. He previously worked for the same federal agency that investigated MSU.

In the 2015-16 academic year, MSU said it received more complaints and found more violations of the school’s relationship violence and sexual misconduct policy than the previous four years combined. Six students, two employees and a faculty member were kicked out of the university for policy violations.

Olds Hall on the campus of Michigan State University Tuesday Dec. 6, 2016 in East Lansing.(Photo: Dave Wasinger/Lansing State Journal)

The university has attributed the increase — 461 complaints, 66 investigations and 38 violations — to greater awareness of how and where to report.

The federal government continues to monitor MSU, a U.S. Department of Education spokesman said in an email, and will do so until the university “is in compliance with the statute(s) and regulations at issue."

Maybank said the university continually reviews its policies and procedures, and its role in addressing students' concerns regarding sexual assault and harassment.

"I believe that we've created a process and continue to review that process to be certain that those involved are heard, and that they are given the opportunity to participate as appropriate," she said. "So I fully understand someone may not feel it worked in their favor. I get that."

It's likely to take years for the campus community to become safer and universities to handle investigations better in part because the people who implement the policies are more important than the policies, victims' rights attorney Bruno said. She said it could happen within months if the university invested enough time in training.

Changing policies happens quickly, noted Bruno, and universities usually start once the federal government opens an investigation because it’s obvious at that point there are problems.

“The people that have been with the institution will often stay with the institution no matter what,” she said. “… They are embedded in the process and they are the problem. If you don’t get rid of the problem, then you don’t get rid of the larger problem.”

Nearly all of the MSU employees who played a role the investigations prompted by allegations from Meg, Elizabeth, Shayna, Emily and the woman who accused Nassar in 2014, still work at the university. Moore, who investigated the Nassar allegations, began working in the Office of General Counsel in the fall of 2014.

Maybank is in her sixth year as vice president of student affairs and services.

MSU fired Nassar in September, in part because the school claimed he lied during the investigation prompted by the new wave of allegations, but also because it found he broke with new institutional guidelines put in place after the 2014 investigation, officials said.

Cody, the university spokesman, defended the use of four medical experts with close ties to Nassar and MSU in the 2014 investigation, saying it "followed the protocols we had in place at the time." He also defended the decision more than two years ago to clear Nassar.

The allegations made this summer and fall against Nassar have prompted police and prosecutors to reopen the criminal investigation stemming from that 2014 medical appointment for hip pain, officials said.

MSU has since decided to reopen its Title IX investigation as well, although the woman who made the 2014 complaint said she had not been notified by MSU of that development.

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Contact Matt Mencarini at (517) 267-1347 or mmencarini@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattMencarini.

About this story

Over the course of several months the State Journal interviewed three women who allege they are victims of sexual assault and sexual harassment and whose claims were investigated by Michigan State University’s Title IX office. That office is charged, by federal law, with investigating gender discrimination on campus. The State Journal also reviewed hundreds of pages from university investigative reports, personal protection order statements, email correspondence, police reports, text messages, court filings and more, much of it obtained from these women.

The State Journal does not typically identify victims of sexual assault or individuals who have filed complaints. However, two of the women agreed to be identified by either their first name or their full name. Two others are named as part of a federal lawsuit against the university.

Lower burden of proof

Title IX is the section of the Education Amendments of 1972 that prohibits sex discrimination in educational institutions that receive federal funds.

In the spring of 2011, the U.S. Department of Education sent colleges and universities a letter pressing the point that it considered sexual violence and sexual harassment forms of gender discrimination.

Schools would be obligated to respond to incidents on their campuses, it said. They would be expected to set up grievance procedures that provide for a "prompt and equitable resolution" of complaints. And those procedures "must use a preponderance-of-the-evidence standard (i.e., it is more likely than not that sexual harassment or violence occurred)."

The criminal justice system uses a beyond-a-reasonable doubt standard for criminal convictions, which has been described as a 95% certainty. But the letter cautioned that “conduct may constitute unlawful sexual harassment under Title IX even if the police do not have sufficient evidence of a criminal violation.”

Under investigation

Colleges or universities in Michigan with open Department of Education investigations as of Nov. 30, 2016

Alma College

Grand Valley State University

University of Michigan

How to report

Report information about Larry Nassar

The Michigan Attorney General’s Office and the Michigan State University Police Department are asking people who believe they may have been victimized by former MSU doctor Larry Nassar or who have information about alleged abuse to call 844-99-MSUPD.

Report campus sexual assault or harassment to MSU

University policy requires most Michigan State University employees to report to the university or its police department any allegations of sexual assault, harassment or domestic violence made against faculty, staff or students. Certain counselors and other health professionals are exempt from the mandated reporter policy.

Any allegations of sexual assault or domestic violence must be reported to the Office of Institutional Equity and the Michigan State University Police Department. The Office of Institutional Equity investigates violations of the university’s sexual misconduct and relationship violence policy. Undergraduate student employees are required to report the allegations to their supervisor, who is required to report information further.

Supervisory employees who receive information about sexual harassment allegations are required to report them to the Office of Institutional Equity. Undergraduate student employees must report the information to their supervisor. Non-supervisory employees are encouraged to report information to the Office of Institutional Equity, although it’s not a requirement.

Once an allegations is reported to the Office of Institutional Equity, the case will be assigned to an investigator who gathers information, interviews involved parties and prepares a report. Sanctions will then be imposed if it’s determined that a violation of university policy occurred.